In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

Every country has the government it deserves.